Poems by Graeme Philipson

I love poetry, and I love writing it. It is a complete change from my normal writing, when I am trying to be as precise and as unambguous as possible. With poetry, imprecision and ambiguity are part of the process.

I started writing poetry in the Australian bush poetry genre in the 1990s for my father John Philipson. Dad was an acclaimed reciter of bush poetry, but he just couln't write the stuff. I've always liked the stuff, and I figured that because I wrote for a living I should be able to write it. At its worst it is doggerel, but well done it is a very attractive art form. I certainly find it fun to write.

Dad died on 4 July 1997. He was far too young, a month short of his 70th birthday. After he had gone I lost interest in writing much more, but I started up again when I met Sharon in 2010. iI suppose that makes here my muse. I have branched out from bush poetry, but still rely heavily on rhyme and rhythm.

A few of my better poems are repoduced below. I have nearly enough for an anthology, which I hope to publish soon. Its introduction, in which I critique my own poems, is here.

This first piece is one of my favourites. It came second in the inaugural Australian Cricket Poetry Competition in 2009. Everybody told me it should have won. I have also written a few other cricket poems.

Social Cricket, the Universe, and Everything

They call it “Social Cricket” – as if it’s just a flingAs if there’s not more to it, no more than other things.But they also say that “life’s a game”, or that “love is in the mind”We make light of many things, it seems, it’s the way that we’re inclined.

But if our cricket’s only “social”, then Shakespeare was just a hackAnd Bonaparte a soldier boy, Hippocrates a quackEinstein described mere trifles, Scott strolled out in the snowThere’s more to bat and ball and stumps than we can ever know.

Not everything is called the same as what it really meansSome say that cricket’s nothing but a game between two teams.And “social”? Sure, but so is birth, and death, and all betweenI say, if cricket’s just a game, then life is just a dream.

Graeme Philipson, Wollongong, 2009)

'The Spirit of Australia' won a highly commended in the Blackened Billy competition in Winton in 1998, and was published in the competition book. I believe it is occasionally performed around the traps. It will tear at your patriotic heartstrings.

The Spirit of Australia

I am the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended I’m the sunburnt country and the flooded plains I’m the Barcoo and the Darling, I’m the Yarra and the Swan I’m the muddy Murrumbidgee after rain.

I’m the sugar cane, the sack of wheat, I’ve made this country rich From the Golden Fleece that rides upon my back I’m on the stockroute back of Bourke, on the station way out west I’m the six lane highway, I’m the desert track.

I’m the Indian Pacific, the Sunlander, the Ghan I bind with steel the land beneath my rails I’m the flying kangaroo, my long reach across the land I’m all that drives and flies and steams and sails.

I’ve carried Banjo’s stockman, and Lawson’s rouseabout I’m every horse that Gordon ever rode I’m the colt from old Regret, I’m the packhorse and the dray I’m the brumby bush horse from the Overflow.

I’m Lalor at the Stockade, I’m the Breaker on the veldt I’m Simpson with his donkey at Lone Pine I’m Tobruk, I’m Crete, I’m Long Tan, I’m the Sydney’s blazing guns I’m the slave upon the railway on the Kwai.

I’m Dad and Dave, and - strike me lucky - I’m the Sentimental Bloke I’m the man from where the Snowy River flows I’m the slicker from the city, I’m the bastard from the bush I’m Matilda waltzing down a country road.

I’m Brabham and I’m Bradman, I’m a girl called Goolagong I’m the big red horse they killed in foreign lands I’m Darcy in the ring and I’m Dally on the wing And I’m Dougie lofting at the Members Stand.

I am Albert Namitjira, I am his canvas painted bright I see this land through ageless open eyes I’m the dreamtime, I’m the dawning, I’m older than the night I am Uluru beneath the southern skies.

You can find me where the mountains tumble down against the sea Where the wide brown land turns rich from flooding rain Where the rivers of the inland flow proud beneath the sky Where the west wind ripples through the golden grain.

From the mighty Southern Ocean to the jungles of the Gulf From Byron to where Hartog nailed his plate From Kosciuscko to the Cooper, from Sydney to the bush I am everything that made this country great.

I’m the Spirit of Australia, I’m the soul of this great land I’m what rides within and makes us what we are I am you and me and all of us, I am tomorrow and today I am the Spirit of the land. I am Australia.

Graeme Philipson, Gosford, 11 January 1995

The next piece, a tribute to the men who built Australia's Snowy River scheme, is occasionally performed by my mate Peter 'Stinger' Nettelton.

Snowy

Banjo wrote a poem about the Snowy River man He made the mountains known across the land But that wild and rugged country grew more famous after that When they tamed the Snowy Mountains with their dams.

They caught the mighty waters and they sent them roaring back Through tunnels bored in solid savage rock To the rivers of the inland, where the cold unceasing flow Brought life to dusty plains and ravaged crops.

The black man knew the place, but he shunned the higher peaks His dreams still tell of ghosts who walk the night But he never made a home up there, he stayed below the line Where the winter winds would dust the world with white.

When Strzelecki found the mountain he named it for the man Who led his people’s struggle to be free Kosciusko it remains today, a symbol of the time When man broke clear from chains and tyranny.

When the war was won they came away from Europe’s wasted wreck From their bloodied and their battered broken lands Call them Balts or bloody reffos, wogs or whinging Poms They built the mighty Snowy with their hands.

“We’ll reverse the rivers’ run, we’ll turn the bastards back We’ll stop the waters wasting to the sea We’ll irrigate the inland, we’ll make the deserts bloom This wide brown land’s a bit too brown for me.

“We’ll make the waters turn the turbines that power half the land They’ll run the foundries and the factories and mills With the water where it’s wanted, and with energy to spare A New Australia will be born up in those hills.”

They blasted out the mountains as they broke through solid rock “Where the river runs those giant hills between” They built the dams and tunnels and they turned the waters back And made the inland glow with gold and green.

Now the skiers come in fancy cars and fancy overcoats They know little of the history of the place They fall about and fornicate and fill themselves with food Never caring for the mountains’ silent grace.

And in the riverland the waters run, the Murray’s always fed From the mighty Murrumbidgee’s steady flow. The vineyards and the ricefields and the orchards hung with fruit Are all fed from frosty pools of melted snow.

But nothing comes uncosted, now the Snowy’s just a creek| A string of muddy puddles in the bed And the Snowy River’s roar is just a whisper in the night That’s Banjo’s ghost still riding on ahead.

Graeme Philipson, 1997-2000

Kings in grass castles ...

The Never Never

Have you ever ever been To the Never Never Land Where the grass grows high as houses And the silent shadows stand

It brings a silence to the senses That stillness ‘cross the land When the birds they gather in the sky In the Never Never Land

If you’ve never never been To the Never Never Land Then you’ll never know the reason why And you’ll never understand

The land is never yours Though it’s gathered in your hand It belongs to all eternity Does the Never Never Land

Graeme Philipson, September 1999

This poem is my first attempt at writing something in German, a language I love and which I have been struggling to learn most of my life. I wrote it after visiting the Somme in 2005, and seeing the oversized statue of the German soldier in the WWI memorial near the Englischer Garten in Munich.

The last poem, 'The Last Bushranger', is an overlong piece I wrote for Dad to mark the old man's 66th birthday (1 August 1993). I made every effort to ensure that all events referred to in the poem are historically correct, though of course some poetic license has been employed. Most events refered to in in the poem are taken from R.B Walker’s “Captain Thunderbolt, Bushranger” in the Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, vol 43, (1957).

Most historians agree that Frederick Ward, alias Captain Thunderbolt, was indeed the last bushranger in Australia. Ned Kelly came later but he was a not a bushranger in the normally accepted sense of the term: he was not an escaped convict and he did not live off the land. Thunderbolt's death, on 25 May 1870, thus marked the end of an important and colourful era in the history of colonial Australia.

He outlasted all the others that made their name during the gold rushes of the 1860s: men like Ben Hall, Johnny Gilbert, Mad Dog Morgan and Frank Gardiner. His bushranging career of five years was also longer than theirs, mainly because he rarely confronted the police, and because of the support he received from the local populace. He was protected by the common people because he never used violence, because he was renowned for his horsemanship, and because he was by all accounts a witty, charming and generous man.

Frederick 'Captain Thunderbolt' Ward is a worthy bearer of the title “the last bushranger”.

The Last Bushranger

Just below Uralla stands New England's southern gate A mighty granite boulder that tells of one man's fate. Of the bushranger called Thunderbolt, the last of that rare breed Of desperate men without the law joined in a common creed.

Thunderbolt was Frederick Ward. The story of his life Begins they say in Windsor town, in eighteen thirty-five. His early life was tough and cruel, the times back then were hard His school was on the horse's back, and in the breaker's yard.

He didn't learn to read or write, but he sure knew how to ride Jimmy Garbutt showed him how to steal, he took it in his stride. They took sixty head from Tocal Run, but the Troopers caught them cold Frederick Ward was twenty-one, with ten years to rot in gaol.

They put him on to Cockatoo, an island made in hell He set to work to work to get away, he nearly did as well. But they caught him and they put him in a hole without the sun Alone he waited for the day when he could make his run.

He swam one night, he got away, he went back to the bush Across the range, to back of Bourke, he joined the westward push. He took to the road, he learned the life of a bushranger at large He robbed the coaches, stole the mail, while riding at the charge.

But life was hard in the sunburnt scrub, he moved back to the range To relieve the squatter of his horse, the traveller of his change. Thunderbolt lived outside the law, but he was honest in his way There's a famous tale of a famous deed at Tenterfield one day.

He went boldly to the races, and looked folk up and down He saw who won and he saw who lost, and he waited out of town. He robbed three German bandsmen, but to show his kind concern He left them some to get to town, and he promised he'd return.

They’d get it back if he could find the man that won the most And by his word the very next day he lived true to his boast. Nick Hart was the man, he was travelling north, a hundred pounds he'd won Ward bailed him up on the border line and relieved him of the sum.

The Germans got their money back, they'd not believed their ears Ward’s word became a legend, passed down through the years. When a hawker came by the Rock one day the outlaw bailed him up But he got to Uralla and raised the alarm, the constables saddled up.

Trooper Walker caught him there that day, outside of Blanche's Inn And shot at him in the valley where Kentucky Creek begins. Our man was on a borrowed horse, he could not outrun the law So he left the saddle and climbed the bank, with Walker firing more.

He was cornered fair and square, but he was brave until the last Walker cried: “surrender, man!” The outlaw saw his chance He charged the mounted trooper, he was firing as he came But his pistol jammed, and the trooper's final bullet found its aim.

He fell into the creek but rose again to fight his foe He died when Walker struck him with a god-almighty blow. That afternoon outside of town, more died than just a man He was the last to live that outlaw’s life upon this lonely land.

All had gone before him: Morgan, Gilbert and Ben Hall Frederick Ward, called Thunderbolt, was the last one of them all. When he died they all died with him, it was the ending of an age A curtain dark was drawn across that now far distant stage.

When Thunderbolt still rode the range, from Mudgee to the Downs When Thunderbolt his name still rang, in country and in town When Thunderbolt outrode the law, from Bourke clear to the sea This land was very different then, from what it came to be.

Now life, they say, is civilised, there's none can do again What Thunderbolt did years ago, when he strode across the land. They say that life is better now the bushrangers are dead But they like to recollect the days the squatters lived in dread.

He's buried in Uralla, where his name is famous yet The Rock still stands, the creek still runs, where he met his death You can have a beer and toast him in the pub that bears his name You can stop awhile and ponder on the reasons for his fame.

And though he’s dead these hundred years, his memory still remains Of how he rode the mountains, and how he strode the plains. His name will live for ever more beneath those cold dark skies The last bushranger may have gone, but the legend never dies.